Class 10 English · Original EZT practice
Class 10 English: How to Tell Wild Animals (Poem) - Summary and Practice Questions
How do you tell an Asian Lion from a Bengal Tiger? Carolyn Wells has a simple method: wait and see which one eats you. Across six stanzas this comic poem walks through the Asian Lion, the Bengal Tiger, the Leopard and the Bear, solves the crocodile-versus-hyena puzzle, and ends with a chameleon you can only identify when you see nothing on the tree. The jokes run on twisted spellings, a marching rhythm and advice that is always one bite too late. This page gives a summary, the humour explained and practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 24 October 2026:
1. Summary - identification by disaster
The poem offers rules for telling wild animals apart, and every rule works only after it is too late to be useful. In the 'jungles in the east', a large and tawny beast that roars at you 'as you're dyin'' is the Asian Lion; a noble wild beast 'With black stripes on a yellow ground' that eats you is the Bengal Tiger - 'This simple rule may help you learn / The Bengal Tiger to discern'. A beast whose 'hide with spots is peppered' and who has already 'lept on you' is the Leopard, and roaring with pain does no good - 'He'll only lep and lep again'. The humour comes from this gap: correct identification, useless timing.
2. Summary - the yard, the smiles and the empty tree
The second half moves from jungle to yard and from large cats to stranger cases. A creature you meet 'walking round your yard' who 'hugs you very, very hard' is a Bear - 'If you have any doubts, I guess / He'll give you just one more caress'. Then the poem solves a famous confusion: 'The Crocodile you always may / Tell from the Hyena thus: / Hyenas come with merry smiles; / But if they weep they're Crocodiles'. The last stanza turns on absence: the true Chameleon is small, earless and wingless, and 'If there is nothing on the tree, / 'Tis the chameleon you see' - you identify the master of camouflage by not seeing it at all.
3. Form - twisted words, true rhymes
Each of the six stanzas is six lines with interlocking end-rhymes, and the poem deliberately bends spelling to keep them. 'Dyin'' rhymes with 'Lion' (stanza 1), 'learn' with 'discern' (stanza 2), and the invented 'lept' and 'lep' echo 'peppered' and 'Leopard' (stanza 3); later stanzas give true pairs - yard/hard, there/Bear, guess/caress (stanza 4), prey/may, nonplus/thus, smiles/Crocodiles (stanza 5), small/all, thing/wing, tree/see (stanza 6). The regular galloping rhythm plus the forced spellings make the language itself part of the joke.
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Apply the fatal rules
Choose the method: Right answer, wrong timing.
EZT practice question
How does the poet say you can identify the Asian Lion and the Bengal Tiger?
Show the worked solution
- By dying or being eaten, unfortunately: if a large and tawny beast roars at you 'as you're dyin'', it is the Asian Lion.
- If a noble wild beast 'With black stripes on a yellow ground' greets you and eats you, the 'simple rule' says it is the Bengal Tiger.
- The poem calls this a rule that helps you 'learn / The Bengal Tiger to discern' - knowledge that arrives exactly one meal too late.
Answer: By dying or being eaten, unfortunately. If a large and tawny beast roars at you 'as you're dyin'', it is the Asian Lion; if a noble wild beast 'With black stripes on a yellow ground' greets you and eats you, the 'simple rule' says it is the Bengal Tiger - knowledge that arrives exactly one meal too late.
Check: Tawny + roar + dyin' = Asian Lion; black stripes on yellow ground + eats you = Bengal Tiger.
Watch for this: Do not clean up the joke - the rule's uselessness is the answer, not a detail.
Now try it yourself
Where does the poem set its first two animal encounters?
Check your answer
In 'jungles in the east', which you might visit 'by chance' - the setting for the Asian Lion and Bengal Tiger rules.
The eastern jungle is where both big-cat rules apply.
Handle the repeat jumper
Choose the method: Once is never enough.
EZT practice question
What does the leopard do once it has 'lept on you'?
Show the worked solution
- The leopard's hide 'with spots is peppered' (peppered: covered with spots, per the book's gloss).
- As soon as he has lept on you, roaring with pain does no good.
- 'He'll only lep and lep again' - the leaping repeats.
Answer: Roaring with pain does no good - 'He'll only lep and lep again.' The spotted leopard, whose hide is peppered with spots, keeps leaping on you no matter how you roar.
Check: The invented verbs lept and lep echo peppered and Leopard - spelling is part of the gag.
Watch for this: Do not offer resistance advice - the poem's point is that no reaction helps.
Now try it yourself
What does 'discern' mean in 'The Bengal Tiger to discern'?
Check your answer
To make out or identify (the book's gloss) - the rule supposedly helps you learn to tell the Bengal Tiger apart.
The book glosses it; quote the gloss and the irony together.
Survive the bearhug
Choose the method: Doubt earns a caress.
EZT practice question
How do you know the creature in your yard is a Bear?
Show the worked solution
- You meet it 'walking round your yard' and it 'hugs you very, very hard'.
- The friendly word hug hides the attack - a bearhug.
- If you have any doubts, 'He'll give you just one more caress' (caress: a gentle, loving touch - here, anything but).
Answer: It 'hugs you very, very hard' - and if you have any doubts, 'He'll give you just one more caress.' The joke is that a friendly-sounding hug or caress is actually how the bear attacks.
Check: Yard + hug + one more caress = Bear; the domestic setting makes the menace sillier.
Watch for this: Do not read the caress as affection - the poem borrows tender words for fatal acts.
Now try it yourself
Name one true rhyming pair from the bear stanza.
Check your answer
Yard/hard - or there/Bear, or guess/caress.
The stanza interlocks three true pairs.
Solve the famous confusion
Choose the method: Smiles against tears.
EZT practice question
What old beliefs about hyenas and crocodiles does the poem use?
Show the worked solution
- The hyena is traditionally said to laugh, and the crocodile to shed false tears - 'crocodile tears' - as it swallows its victims.
- So Wells gives the rule: 'Hyenas come with merry smiles; / But if they weep they're Crocodiles.'
- The joke mirrors the bearhug: a friendly sign (smiles) and a sad sign (weeping) both mark danger.
Answer: The hyena is traditionally said to laugh and the crocodile to shed false tears - 'crocodile tears' - as it swallows its victims. So Wells gives the rule: 'Hyenas come with merry smiles; / But if they weep they're Crocodiles.'
Check: Merry smiles = hyena; weeping = crocodile - the folk beliefs carry the identification.
Watch for this: Do not swap the pair - smilers are hyenas, weepers are crocodiles.
Now try it yourself
How does the crocodile-hyena stanza rhyme?
Check your answer
Prey/may, nonplus/thus, and smiles/Crocodiles - three interlocking pairs like the other stanzas.
Even the riddling stanza keeps the six-line rhyme engine.
Identify by absence
Choose the method: See nothing, name it.
EZT practice question
What single feature finally identifies the chameleon?
Show the worked solution
- The true Chameleon is small, and it is earless and wingless.
- But the decisive sign is camouflage: it sits on the tree unseen.
- 'If there is nothing on the tree, / 'Tis the chameleon you see' - you identify the master of camouflage by not seeing it at all.
Answer: That you cannot see it - 'If there is nothing on the tree, / 'Tis the chameleon you see.' The small, earless, wingless lizard camouflages so well that an apparently empty tree is the proof of its presence.
Check: The logic is deliberately backwards: absence of evidence is the identification.
Watch for this: Do not list only the physical traits - small, earless, wingless is the setup; invisibility is the punchline.
Now try it yourself
How does this last rule crown the poem's pattern?
Check your answer
Every rule identified an animal through what it does to you; the chameleon is identified through what it does not do - appear - the most useless-useful rule of all.
It completes the poem's escalation from danger to absence.
Prosecute the spellings
Choose the method: Mangled words, clean rhymes.
EZT practice question
Give two examples of the poet taking liberties with language, and explain the effect.
Show the worked solution
- She writes 'dyin'' for 'dying' so it rhymes cleanly with 'Lion'.
- She invents 'lept' and 'lep' so the leopard's leaps echo 'peppered' and 'Leopard'.
- The twisted spellings force the mouth into the rhyme, making the lines sound as absurd as the advice they carry - the language is mangled on purpose, and that is the humour.
Answer: She writes 'dyin'' for 'dying' so it rhymes cleanly with 'Lion', and invents 'lept' and 'lep' so the leopard's leaps echo 'peppered' and 'Leopard'. The twisted spellings force the mouth into the rhyme, which makes the lines sound as absurd as the advice they carry - the language is mangled on purpose, and that is the humour.
Check: One liberty is compression (dyin'), the other invention (lept/lep) - label them differently.
Watch for this: Do not call the spellings errors - the textbook's own question asks whether dyin' can be made to rhyme with lion.
Now try it yourself
What does the book's gloss 'ground: background' explain?
Check your answer
In 'black stripes on a yellow ground', ground means background - black stripes on a yellow background, the Bengal Tiger's coat.
It is the gloss students most often misread as earth.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. The six animals in order?
Show answer and reason
Asian Lion, Bengal Tiger, Leopard, Bear, Crocodile-versus-Hyena, Chameleon.
The poem walks them in this sequence.
2. 'Dyin'' rhymes with?
Show answer and reason
Lion - the poet bends spelling so the rhyme lands.
The textbook's first question asks exactly this.
3. Hyena versus Crocodile?
Show answer and reason
Hyenas come with merry smiles; if they weep, they're Crocodiles.
Laughing hyena, crocodile tears - the old beliefs.
4. How is the chameleon identified?
Show answer and reason
By seeing nothing on the tree - its camouflage is the identification.
The poem's only identification-by-absence.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- Recite the identification rule for any two big cats, quotes included.
- Explain the bearhug joke in two sentences, using caress correctly.
- List three twisted or true rhyme pairs and name the stanza each belongs to.
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Questions about this practice page
- What is How to Tell Wild Animals about?
- A comic set of rules for identifying wild animals - lion, tiger, leopard, bear, crocodile-versus-hyena and chameleon - where every identification succeeds only after the animal has already pounced, hugged or eaten you.
- Who wrote How to Tell Wild Animals?
- Carolyn Wells, an American writer known for humorous verse; the poem appears in NCERT's First Flight for Class 10.
- What is the rhyme scheme of How to Tell Wild Animals?
- Each six-line stanza interlocks three rhyming pairs - for example chance/advance, east/beast, dyin'/Lion in the first stanza - with the poet bending spelling (lept, lep, dyin') to keep the rhymes landing.
- How does the poem tell a crocodile from a hyena?
- 'Hyenas come with merry smiles; / But if they weep they're Crocodiles' - it uses the old beliefs that hyenas laugh and crocodiles shed false tears.
- Why is How to Tell Wild Animals funny?
- Because the identification rules are correct but useless - you learn which animal it is only as it eats you - and because the poet mangles spelling and rhythm on purpose to make the rhymes as silly as the advice.